Insecurities
by DobbyRocksSocks
Summary: Childhood Trauma haunts Draco and he takes his emotions out on Harry. Ginny tells Draco some home truths about Harry's own upbringing. Warning for mentioned abuse and language.


**Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise. **

**Warning for mentions of abuse and some strong language. **

**Insecurities**

"You can sleep on the couch. There's pillows and blankets in the airing cupboard," Ginny sighed, letting the bedraggled looking Draco into the house. She turned to the stairs, planning to go back to bed, but she stopped. Looking at her guest, she frowned. "This has to stop though Draco. Either sort out your head, or stop putting him through hell and break off the relationship."

As she left the room, Draco took the sheets from the cupboard and set about making a bed up on the couch she had offered him. This had become a regular occurrence, and he knew he was being unfair by putting her in the middle of him and Harry all the time. She had been Harry's friend long before she was his, and she was fiercely loyal, so he knew this had to feel uncomfortable to her.

Of course, she would be fire-calling the black haired man, even as he made his bed, he knew. She always did, so Harry knew he was safe. The first time he had turned up on her doorstep, she thought that Harry had done something wrong. She couldn't have been more mistaken, and he made sure she knew that. Draco was the one with the problem.

Harry tried to be understanding, and Draco loved him all the more for it, but Harry could never understand the thoughts running through his head. They had been brought up differently, though Harry had never told Draco about his time with the muggles. Draco had been through hell with his father, nothing was ever good enough, and that had left a bigger mark than anyone could have guessed.

Draco's insecurities were deeply ingrained, and he had no idea what to do about them. Any time Harry was in public, there was a chance it would set them off. A glance at another man, or even a woman. A polite word of thanks to a shop keeper. Leaving a tip for a male waiter. Simple things, things most people wouldn't even think about. This time, it had been a picture in the prophet that had set Draco off, a picture of Harry talking to the Minister.

In Draco's head, he knew that Harry and Minister Shacklebolt were friends, that they had fought together, that they shared a bond that everyone in the order shared. But that didn't stop him seeing things in the picture that more than likely weren't there. A flirtatious smile, they shook hands for too long, Harry looked the Minister directly in the eye.

He had thrown plates as he raged at Harry, accusing him of cheating, of wanting to be with other guys, called him all kinds of horrible names. Harry had sat in the chair and taken it all, not even blinking an eye at the smashing sound. As Draco had stormed from the room, he had seen something he never seen during or after any of their arguments.

A tear sliding silently down Harry's face.

xxxxx

Twenty minutes after she had gone upstairs, Ginny stormed back down them, glaring at Draco as she entered the living room.

"You made him cry. Harry hasn't cried for five years, since the end of the war, and you made him cry, you bastard!" She threw herself into the chair facing him, still glaring at him.

"Ginny, he know's my past, he knows how hard I had it as a child and he knows what that did to me. I can't change who I am, and if Harry chooses to be with me despite that, then who am I to turn away the man I love? I know I say horrible things to him, and I regret them, every single day, but I don't know how to change. I don't know how to make things better."

Draco was crying now, much the same way he did after every time he blew up at Harry, but the disappointment and anger in Ginny's eyes didn't soften, in fact, if anything, it got stronger.

"You listen to me, Draco Malfoy, and you listen well. Have you ever asked Harry about his time with the Dursleys?"

Her voice was scathing, and as she said the name Dursley, Draco heard a venom there that he had never heard before. He shook his head. He had always assumed Harry's life with the muggles had been average, and so had never thought to ask.

"Of course you haven't, because you're a self absorbed idiot. Harry was abused, as much as you and more, verbally and physically. My mother had to patch him up, fix broken bones, and hold him as he cried for hours every time Harry escaped that horrible place and came to us for whatever was remaining of the summer. They told him his parents died in a car crash, that his father had been driving drunk and ran the car off the road. They told him constantly that he was useless, that he should have died when he was a baby, and much more that I can't even contemplate. You didn't know any of that did you? You thought Harry wouldn't understand having a bad childhood? Guess what, jackass, he does."

Draco was speechless as Ginny finished her rant. He didn't know any of that, she was correct, and it struck a chord inside him. Why didn't he know any of that? Because he was a selfish idiot. As he stood up and started to clear up the makeshift bed, Ginny finally softened a little bit.

"You don't need to leave," she told him.

"I do," he replied, and he pulled her into a quick hug. "Thank you for telling me."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Home," he replied with a small smile. "My boyfriend needs me."


End file.
